I'm writing this article as a gay man, a disabled person, and a regular visitor to some Italian gay chat rooms.
There is a certain difficulty in presenting oneself as disabled: generally, gay people are not enthusiastic about talking to people who are not able-bodied.
The basis of this is the fact that the homosexual world would like to be a circle of young, beautiful, fit and tanned people.
Mostly, disabled people are not even taken into consideration.
In fact, sometimes their presence bothers someone. I and others have even been asked to go to the designated spaces ('disabled rooms'). For me, this is ghettoization.
It must also be said that, in the real world, while an able-bodied person, albeit with difficulty, can become visible (come out), this is almost impossible for a disabled person, because they could face insurmountable difficulties if a person on whom they depend is homophobic.
There are, however, many exceptions, mostly men who want to try having sex with a disabled person or people who don't think they're capable of having a relationship with a normal person (see, for example, the belief that they're ugly—common among many gay people).
People who appreciate disabled people are found especially among the very young and among the over-40s.
Disabled people are an important presence.
Since approximately 51% of the Italian population is disabled, it can be deduced that at least one in 20 people who frequent gay chat rooms is disabled.
At least. Yes, at least. Both because, according to some, gay people suffer accidents (and therefore disabilities) at a higher rate than average, and because disabled people have more time to dedicate to leisure.
In chat, the disabled person generally does not openly declare himself as such, but taking advantage of the virtual environment he is content to have some more or less erotic conversation, or to talk to someone who presents himself as an attractive person – something difficult in the real world.
The disabled person sometimes does this by misrepresenting their age and social status. But that's how it is, it's hard to find someone who's truly honest about everything in chat.
In the chat, you can find people with disabilities of all kinds. Paraplegics, the majority of whom are paraplegics due to accidents, are also found, but there are also deaf and hard-of-hearing people, people with multiple sclerosis, incontinent people, and individuals with a wide variety of syndromes. Some are born disabled, others become disabled due to trauma or illness. Some are stable or progressively disabled.
The sexuality of the disabled person is conditioned by his handicap.
This is why he's often found in rooms where people are seeking extreme sex. Why? Because a disabled person seeks out intense sensations to compensate for the senses diminished by their disability, or because they feel inferior, or because they're seeking revenge on others.
Then there are the ‘'devotee'’, that is, those able-bodied people who feel an attraction, sometimes morbid, towards disabled people.
They are divided by specific interests: there are devotees attracted by amputations (the majority), those attracted by paraplegics (in wheelchairs) and those interested in disabilities of any kind.
In many cases the devotee is not attracted by the person himself but by his disability or his handicapped aids.
Devotees typically develop an attraction to disabled people over the years; however, very young people (under 25) can also be found.
One issue that disabled gays need to be very careful about is that of people intent on robbing people contacted via chat. These find disabled people to be particularly 'interesting' victims.
The easiest way to understand if a person belongs to this category is to tell them that they don't live alone and see what their reaction is.
It's surprising to see how many people like this contact someone who lists their disability in their username.
Then there are people who enjoy playing silly pranks like setting up a date and then not showing up. But that happens to everyone...
Frank
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